A Round-Heeled Woman at Theater Artaud

She puts an ad in the paper that casually mentioned she'd like lots of sex before her 67th birthday. She flies to New York to meet men, with whom she is now quite popular. She tracks down her estranged son in the California wilderness. She convinces her friends that meeting men through a newspaper ad is not - necessarily - going to end in death, dismemberment, and unseemly police investigations. She yells for her therapist in the middle of sex.

Who is this enterprising She? This part gets complicated, but maybe only if you have a case of the brain-sucking sniffles (just sayin') (sniff). Bay Area teacher Jane Juska decided to shake up her celibate life by placing an ad in The New York Times Review of Books. After meeting a wide selection of men from a wide selection of age brackets (32 to 84, if you were wondering), she wrote a bestselling book about her adventures in romance, disappointment, and disconcerting first dates. Juska's book came to the attention of Sharon Gless (Queer as Folk, Burn Notice, Nip/Tuck, and Cagney and Lacey) who recognized it as the theatrical holy grail it is - a juicy role for a woman over 60. The theatrical version, starring Gless, is now playing at Theater Artaud, complete with realistically staged sex scenes and virtually every synonym for trollop in the Oxford English Dictionary. Which makes it both entertaining and educational.

Through February 7 at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida St. Tickets available at www.zspace.org.